Moral Ambition: Stop wasting your talent and start making a difference

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“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads” – Jeff Hammerbacher (an early Facebook engineer). Is there something to this? Is too much human talent being wasted in pointless, socially worthless, or just plain harmful jobs? And even for those who have avoided the temptation of the fat salary, fancy title and corner office—and the stress and exhaustion that usually comes with it—will it be enough to say at the end of your life that you were happy? Do you also want to say that you made a positive difference to the world? Let’s do a meetup to discuss.

Book: Moral Ambition – Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference (2025) by Rutger Bregman.

The author of our book this month, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, is the bestselling author of Utopia for Realists (2016) and Humankind (2021). You may also remember him from his viral 2019 panel speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he pointedly told the wealthy elite that they needed to stop talking about philanthropy and start paying their fair share of taxes. He hasn’t been invited back. ("Was it something I said?" he later tweeted). Likewise, be prepared to feel chastised while reading this book. You’ve been warned!

In the book, Bregman challenges conventional notions of career success, urging individuals—particularly those in privileged positions—to redirect their talents toward addressing pressing social issues. He introduces "moral ambition" as a guiding principle, with the idea of capturing the idealism of an activist with the ambition of an entrepreneur. Uncovering the qualities that made the great change-makers of history so effective, he shows how we too can lend our talents to the biggest challenges of our time, from climate change to inequality to the next pandemic. With moral ambition, we can be both idealistic and successful, and change the world along the way.

As usual, to enrich the meetup conversation and provide shared reference points, you’re strongly encouraged to read the book. (It's out now, including Abbeys and Dymocks. It's also available on Amazon, but persist with its search engine if you land on an old page claiming it's currently unavailable.) There are also some related resources linked below that you may wish to look at (and totally optional if you have read the book. But I would recommend the fun and informative Jon Stewart interview for everyone).

So, join us for a drink (and optional meal) at 6.30pm Monday, 7th July on the 2nd floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel, Surrey Hills. The Keg & Brew is close to Central Station and the Light Rail.

We hope to see you there!

p.s. Please adjust your RSVP if you have indicated that you will come but are no longer able to do so. This is courteous to people if there is a waitlist.

p.p.s. Please adjust your email notifications (particularly for the Big Ideas Book Club settings in the main email notification settings page). This is useful for giving any final details or late changes to the event.

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These are just optional links to consider, particularly if you can't get the book. Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section.

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